WASHINGTON — Blue Origin has added a fourth customer to its launch manifest for the still-in-development New Glenn rocket. “We are honored to have SKY Perfect JSAT as a customer for an early New Glenn launch,” Bob Smith, Blue Origin’s chief executive, told SpaceNews. “They are the biggest commercial satellite operator in Asia and highly respected. The whole team at Blue thanks SKY Perfect JSAT for placing its trust in us to take them to orbit.” The Jeff Bezos-owned company also announced March 12 that mu Space, a Thai startup,…

WASHINGTON — A Soyuz rocket from Arianespace successfully delivered four telecommunications satellites into medium Earth orbit for fleet operator SES. The rocket took off from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana at 12:11 p.m. Eastern March 9 after a 33-minute delay caused by high altitude winds. The four 700-kilogram satellites separated from the rocket’s upper stage two hours after liftoff in pairs 20 minutes apart. The launch is Arianespace’s second launch of the year and first since an inertial navigation system with incorrect launch data led an Ariane 5 rocket slightly…

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The top executive with the U.S. firm that markets Russia’s Proton rocket blasted what he characterized as a recent slew of misinformation surrounding the vehicle, saying it enjoys the full support of the Russian government and that the culmination of a three-year quality control program instituted by its manufacturer is restoring the reliability for which the vehicle has long been known. ILS President Kirk Pysher “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Kirk Pysher, president of International Launch Services (ILS), said of erroneous press reports concerning a…

WASHINGTON — The Ariane 5 rocket that deviated from its expected flight path Jan. 25 and lost contact with ground control was fed the wrong coordinates, according to the independent commission Arianespace tasked last month to find out what caused the close call. Both telecommunications satellites onboard the rocket safely reached orbit despite the flight anomaly but will need to burn additional fuel to reach their perch some 36,000 kilometers above the equator. The European Space Agency-led independent enquiry commission concluded that Ariane 5’s inertial navigation system was fed the…

WASHINGTON — Fleet operator Viasat’s newest satellite could lose around 15 percent of its intended throughput due to an antenna problem discovered after launch. Mark Dankberg, Viasat’s Chairman and CEO, told investors Feb. 8 that the 6,400-kilogram ViaSat-2 satellite launched in June on an Ariane 5 rocket will likely have a maximum capacity of 260 gigabits per second, rather than 300 Gbps or more as initially hoped. Viasat and satellite manufacturer Boeing are continuing to work on solutions to the antenna problem, Dankberg said, but cannot conclude whether any prospective…

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — The European Space Agency on Feb. 8 announced five companies will study potential small launch vehicles for the agency’s Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP). ArianeGroup, MT Aerospace, European Launch Vehicle, Deimos and PLD Space are all proposing “microlaunchers” for dedicated missions to low-Earth orbit that can be “economically viable,” and “commercially self-sustaining” but “without public funding,” ESA said. “A European commercial microlauncher can meet the growing need for dedicated launch services to companies with small satellites,” Jerome Breteau, manager of ESA’s Future Launchers Preparatory Programme,” said…

TITUSVILLE, Fla. — The optics and instruments for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have arrived at the California factory where they will be integrated later this year with the rest of the spacecraft for launch next year. The Optical Telescope and Integrated Science instrument module, or OTIS, arrived at a Northrop Grumman facility in Redondo Beach, California, late Feb. 2 after being flown on a U.S. Air Force C-5 cargo plane from Ellington Field, Texas, near the Johnson Space Center. The OTIS unit, which consists of the telescope’s optics and…

WASHINGTON — British satellite operator Inmarsat and mobile network operator Deutsche Telekom have finished building the ground infrastructure for the hybrid satellite and cellular European Aviation Network (EAN). The companies announced Feb. 5 that the network’s 300 LTE towers are set up across the 28 European Union member states, along with Switzerland and Norway, forming the air-to-ground half of the pan-European inflight entertainment and connectivity network. That ground network pairs with an S-band satellite called Inmarsat S EAN, which launched in June on an Ariane 5 rocket. Built by Thales…

WASHINGTON — NASA, whose James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch on an Ariane 5 next year, will be included in the European investigation into an anomaly suffered by the rocket on its most recent launch. Arianespace announced Jan. 26 the formation of an “independent enquiry commission,” to be chaired by the European Space Agency’s inspector general, that will study the anomaly during the Jan. 25 launch that placed two communications satellites into the wrong orbits. Both satellites will be able to achieve their desired geostationary orbits, but later…